Author: Jon Brodkin

Chicago and Los Angeles are in the running for Google Fiber deployments, with officials in both cities talking to Google about whether network construction is feasible.

"Home to a combined 6+ million people, Chicago and LA are the two largest metros we’ve engaged with to date," Google said in an announcement today.

Google Fiber is available in just three metro areas: Kansas City in Missouri and Kansas; Austin, Texas; and Provo, Utah. With the addition of Chicago and LA to the list of potential fiber cities, there are now 17 metro areas that have a good chance of getting Google's $70-per-month gigabit Internet service.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump says he wants to talk to Bill Gates about "closing that Internet up in some way" in order to prevent Islamic terrorist group ISIS from recruiting kids.

Speaking at a Pearl Harbor Day rally in South Carolina yesterday, Trump said, "We have kids that are watching the Internet and they want to be masterminds...  they're young, they're impressionable, they go over there, and they want to join ISIS."

Clearly, the Internet is to blame. Trump continued (see video here, Internet-related comments beginning at 22:53):

AT&T today launched its gigabit fiber Internet service in parts of Los Angeles and West Palm Beach and announced another 36 metro areas that will get the service at later dates.

AT&T's "GigaPower" service is available in 20 metro areas as of now, the company said in its announcement today. It launched first in Austin, Texas, in 2013.

Much of AT&T's 22-state telephone service footprint will remain stuck with slow DSL service, but AT&T agreed to deploy fiber to at least 12.5 million customer locations within four years in exchange for government approval to buy DirecTV. Including previous deployments, AT&T will end up building to more than 14 million homes and small businesses. This will make it one of the largest fiber deployments in the country, though still short of the roughly 20 million locations passed by Verizon FiOS.

Sling TV CEO Roger Lynch accused Comcast of setting its data caps just low enough to prevent customers from replacing cable TV with online video streaming.

In an interview with CordCutting.com today, Lynch said:

I think one of the areas we’re quite focused on is what’s happening in Washington, DC around net neutrality. We see concerning things happening if you look at cable companies like Comcast now instituting data caps that just happen to be at a level at or below what someone would use if they’re watching TV on the Internet—and at the same time launching their own streaming service that they say doesn’t count against the data cap. It’s something we’ve been warning Washington about for years, and it’s a risk to OTT [over-the-top Internet services] in general. We’re net neutrality proponents, and want to make sure that rules are implemented so that it really is a level playing field for new players like us.

Comcast is testing 300GB-per-month data caps in a variety of cities before a potential nationwide rollout. Customers are charged $10 for each additional 50GB, and in all but a few of the cities with data caps, they can pay an extra $30 or $35 per month for unlimited data.

Net neutrality supporters optimistic after court arguments

Internet providers suing the Federal Communications Commission to overturn net neutrality rules got their day in court today as oral arguments were heard by a three-judge panel at the US Court of Appeals in Washington, DC.

A decision might not come for months, but net neutrality supporters said the judges’ questions indicate that a ruling may defer to the FCC’s determination on the crucial question of whether Internet providers can be reclassified as common carriers. Opponents of the net neutrality rules believe the judges are skeptical about some of the FCC’s arguments, however.

T-Mobile USA earned the highest score among the four major nationwide carriers in the latest Consumer Reports ranking of cellular service providers. But the gaps between T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, and Sprint weren't very large, as the big four all lagged far behind the smallest carriers in customer satisfaction.

Consumer Cellular came in first place out of 10 postpaid carriers with an overall score of 89 out of 100, followed by Ting, which scored 88. The next four carriers were GreatCall/Jitterbug, Credo Mobile, Virgin Mobile, and US Cellular, which all scored in the 70s.

The big four occupied the bottom four slots. T-Mobile scored 73, followed by Verizon at 70, AT&T at 68, and Sprint at 67.

Sixteen cities and towns in New Jersey have asked the state to investigate Verizon, claiming that the telecommunications company “has, through neglect, abandoned and retired its copper landline infrastructure in most of South Jersey.”

In areas where Verizon hasn’t upgraded its network to fiber, it has failed to properly maintain the copper wires used to provide telephone service and DSL Internet, the towns said in a petition to the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities (BPU).

“In more affluent communities, Verizon has begun to phase out copper with more modern fiber” while “ignoring these issues in communities like ours,” Hopewell Township Committeeman Gregory Facemyer said in the towns’ announcement of their petition.

In Stewart, British Columbia, there is no cell phone service, and aside from satellite, the town had just one option for anything resembling modern Internet access.

Unfortunately, that broadband provider has just shut down, leaving the remote Canadian district of about 500 residents with severely limited access to the Internet. Onewayout.net, a wireless home Internet provider that started in 1995, discontinued service at the end of November.

"The infrastructure required to deliver Internet and possibly cell service is extremely expensive—to do it effectively, Stewart needs a tower that can serve the entire community," Onewayout, a nonprofit organization, said on its website.

AT&T Senior VP Bob Quinn says his company has avoided offering some new services because of worries about violating net neutrality rules. Quinn, head of the telco's federal regulatory division, provided little detail on what kinds of services AT&T might offer if not for the rules issued by the Federal Communications Commission this year. “Since the Open Internet Order came out we've had weekly calls with the business units and literally 15 lawyers who are all trying to figure out whether that stuff we've invested in... would be a violation of the order," he said at the Phoenix Center's Annual US Telecoms Symposium yesterday, according to Politico. "We've had to shelve a bunch of stuff because we've got to wait and see.”

AT&T has "paused plans to offer some new services" because of legal uncertainty, Politico wrote. While Quinn was apparently light on detail here, he said that AT&T didn't want to be the first carrier to offer something similar to T-Mobile's new Binge On video streaming program because it wasn't clear how the FCC would respond.

AT&T's claim that it will pause offering new services is reminiscent of its statement a year ago that it would "pause" investments in fiber networks because of net neutrality rules. But after the rules were approved, AT&T continued expanding fiber and agreed to deploy fiber to 12.5 million potential customers.

Web pioneer Yahoo may sell its core business, as the company's latest turnaround efforts continue to stall, The Wall Street Journal reported last night.

Sources familiar with the plans say the board is meeting today through Friday "to consider selling off the company’s flagging Internet businesses and how to make the most of its valuable stake in Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.," the Journal wrote. "Directors are likely to discuss whether to proceed with a plan to spin off its investment in Alibaba, currently worth more than $30 billion, find a buyer for Yahoo’s gaggle of Web properties, or both."

A Yahoo spokesperson declined to comment on the report when contacted by Ars this morning.